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http://www.archive.org/details/criticalreviewofOOchaprich 


A  CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF 


The  Shakspere  Mortuary  Malediction 


AND 


THE  SEVENTEEN-FOOT  GRAVE 


•.  .• :  •: .'  *» 

BY 

WILLIAM  HALL  CHAPMAN 

Giles  Publishing  &  Printing  Co. 

Los  Angeles,  California 


Gii  • 


COPYRIGHTED 

MCMXXI 
WM.  H.  CHAPMAN 

1728  HUDSON    AVE. 
1jO«    AN6ELES,  CAL.  .  U.  6.  Ai, 


FOREWORD 


7  refer  to  Shakspere,  of  Stratford,  to  recognize  the 
form  of  the  spelling  of  the  name  according  to  the  way 
the  owner  of  the  name  spelled  it  when  he  signed  him- 
self William  Shakspere, — there  are  no  exceptions  in 
his  autographs.  But  writing  ** Shakespeare/'  where 
I  am  speaking  of  the  author  of  the  Plays  and  Poems, 
I  have  kindly  employed  the  term  **Stratfordian'*lt^:'^^\ 
designate  the  persons  who  assert  that  the  Player  was  . 
the  Playwright.  -»,•.'•.'.  ^ 


WM.  H.  CHAPMAN 

17X©  HUDSON   AVE. 
LOS   ANOeL.E$,CAi..U.  S.  A. 


VA*      **V** 


44G040 


THE  SHAKSPERE  MORTUARY  MALEDIC- 
TION AND  THE  SEVENTEEN- 
FOOT  GRAVE 

There  are  two  significant  facts  connected  with 
William  Shakspere's  interment  in  Holy  Trinity 
Church,  Stratford-on-Avon. 

First  (1).  Is  the  authenticity  of  Shakspere's 
mortuary  malediction,  which  is  epigraphed  on 
stone,  and  placed  beneath  the  consecrated  roof  of 
an  eldifice  dedicated  to  Christian  worship,  as  un- 
questionably his  own  composition,  or  chosen  by 
himself  for  his  epitaph,  entitled  to  acceptance  as 
being  true,  or  in  accordance  with  concurrent  facts, 
and  a  record  of  Shakspere's  own  wishes,  an  in- 
struction that  the  lines  be  inscribed  on  his  grave- 
stone. 

Secondly  (2).  The  other  statement  of  absorb- 
ing interest  transmitted  by  way  of  an  early  tra- 
dition that  "they  have  laid  him  full  iseventeten-foot 
deep,  deep  enough  to  secure  him,"  contained  in  a 
letter  written  by  William  Hall,  a  Queen's  man  of 
Oxford,  in  the  year  1694,  to  his  friend  the  dis- 
tinguished philologist,  Mr.  Edward  Thwaites. 

The  Oxford  graduate's  statement  has  long  been 
regarded  as  one  of  the  traditionary  reveries,  but 
now  well  within  the  sphere  of  probability,  and  as 


:&CTJ<^^  to  truth  we  think  should  carry  conviction. 
Inasmuch  as  a  very  deep  grave  is  protection,  it 
supplements  the  mortuary  malediction  cut  on  the 
grave  stone,  which  is  also  protective.  For  the 
lines  spook  the  would-be  superstitious  exhuma- 
tionist  you  are  "blessed  if  you  do  and  damned  if 
you  don't!"  The  credibleness,  (significance,  and 
force  of  these  facts  are  set  forth  in  the  Stratford 
Municipal  Corporation's  archives.  Its  authority 
put  the  government  of  the  whole  town  in  the  hands 
of  its  inhabitants.  For  here  we  may  look  through 
Shakspere's  whole  conduct  during  this  struggle 
(1614-1618)  in  behalf  of  popular  rights  by  the 
councillors  who  were  determined  to  "preserve 
their  inheritance"  as  the  heirs  and  successors  of 
the  original  fraternity,  dissolved  by  Henry  VIII 
in  1547.  It  was  during  the  reign  of  Edward  VI, 
by  whose  charter  of  incorporation,  dated  June  7, 
1553,  "the  common  field"  passed  to  the  town. 

Our  business,  however,  is  to  see  Shakspere  as 
he  stood  in  relation  to  the  Stratford  Corporation. 
So  let  me  begin  by  asking  the  reader's  attention 
to  a  few  facts. 

In  the  first  place  we  learn  from  the  Stratford 
records  that  rioting  continued  intermittently  at 
Stratford  from  the  autumn  of  1614  to  the  begin- 
ning of  1619  over  the  attempted  enclosure  of  the 
common  fields  on  the  confines  of  the  town.  In  this 
connection  we  shall  find  nothing  but  what  is  dis- 
creditable to  William  Shakspere  of  Stratford  (poet 
or  not) ,  for  on  December  23,  1614,  the  Councillors 
addressed  a  letter  of  remonstrance  to  him  on  the 


subject,  which  is  an  enduring  attestation  .Of' ail ;'/;':  J^Vi'. J  : /■ 
ev«>nt  for  wrong  doing  evinced  by  his  tiiiraWful' 
purposes  to  enclose  the  common  fields.  Instead  of 
a  friendly  disposition  towards  the  people  ultimate 
condemnation  furnished  an  index  of  character 
foreshadowing  the  mortuary  malediction  chiseled 
on  his  tombstone.  Of  this  he  is  clearly  convicted 
by  the  evidence  in  the  opinion  of  all  unbiased  per- 
sons as  one  associated  with  three  other  land-crib- 
bers,  William  and  Thomas  Combe,  and  Arthur 
Mainwaring,  who  had  the  audacity  to  question  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice,  Sir  Edward  Coke's,  authority 
to  declare  that  the  resistance  to  the  corporation 
"is  against  the  law  of  the  realm." 

Notwithstanding  Sir  Edward  Coke  reiterated  his 
warning  from  the  bench  at  Warwick,  Shakspere, 
by  his  opposition  to  the  Councillors,  his  continued 
hostility  and  injustice,  had  brought  down  this 
calamity  upon  the  townsfolk.  We  learn  from  the 
bailiff  of  Stratford,  Francis  Smythe,  senior,  that 
the  horrors  before  known,  the  miserable  inhab- 
itants flying  from  their  flaming  village,  were  ten- 
derness as  compared  to  that  new  injury,  the  at- 
tempted enclosures  of  1614-1618,  the  beginning  of 
which  William  Shakspere,  of  Stratford,  saw  and 
part  of  which  hs  was — particips  criminis,  in  1614- 
1616.  Be  it  remembered  that  of  the  four  principal 
disturbers  of  the  local  peace,  William  Shakspere 
was  the  only  one  who  had  gone  down  to  the  grave 
during  the  insurrection.  If  William  and  Thomas 
Combe  had  gone  out  of  life  while  the  riot  raged 
they,  too,  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been 


:yurle^- on;  the  seventeen-foot  level,  or  at  least 
***'deep  enough  to  secure  them."  Arthur  Mainwar- 
ing  resided  in  London,  but  was  represented  at 
Stratford  by  one  William  Replingham.  However, 
there  is  nothing  inexplicable  about  Shakspere's 
interment  except  in  the  thoughts  of  persons  desti- 
tute of  the  full  information  contained  in  the  Strat- 
ford archives  where  are  settled  the  matter  of  all 
that  seems  unintelligible,  strange,  and  mysterious 
about  his  burial.  For  the  seeming  legendary 
statement  of  William  Hall,  the  Oxford  graduate, 
vanishes  when  the  responsibility  of  the  writer  of 
the  letter  and  eminence  of  the  recipient  are  con- 
sidered in  connection  with  the  four  years  of  inter- 
mittent rioting  disclosed  by  the  Stratford  records 
—1614-1618. 

The  archives  of  the  Stratford  Corporation  sup- 
ply full  knowledge  of  facts  as  to  the  cause  of  the 
uprising,  and  the  official  papers  are  essentially  sup- 
plemented by  a  remaining  fragment  of  Thomas 
Greene's  (the  Town  clerk)  private  diary  from 
Nov.  15,  1614,  to  Feb.  19,  1616^1617. 

And  here  let  me  give  the  explanation  supplied 
by  the  Corporation  records.  The  traditions  which 
ascribe  to  William  Shakspere  of  Stratford  the  au- 
thorship of  the  boorish  curse  cut  on  his  chanceled 
tombstone  had  its  genesis  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, for  the  earliest  transmitters  of  the  tradition 
visited  Stratford  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Mr.  John  Dowdall,  a  young  bar- 
rister, in  1693,  while  on  his  way  to  the  assizes  at 
Warwick,  addressed  a  letter  to  Mr.  Edward  South- 

10 


well,  the  writer's  cousin,  in  which  he  describes 
William  Shakspere's  epitaph  as  "near  the  wall 
where  his  body  is  buried  with  his  epitaph  made  by 
himself  a  little  before  his  death."  Mr.  DowdalFs 
statement  at  the  time  of  his  visit  on  April  10th, 
1693,  to  Holy  Trinity  Church,  Stratford,  is  the 
oldest  testimony  in  existence  of  facts  about  Shak- 
spere's  authorship  of  the  imprecation  inscribed  on 
his  tomb. 

In  connection  with  Mr.  John  DowdalFs  descrip- 
tion should  be  read  the  account  in  the  following 
year,  1694,  of  Mr.  William  Hall,  a  man  of  letters, 
who  took  his  M.  A.  degree  in  July,  1697,  who  be- 
came a  doctor  of  divinity  in  1708.  William  Hall's 
letter,  found  at  the  Bodleian  Library  in  1884,  was 
written  in  the  year  1694  to  his  friend,  Edward 
Thwaites,  also  a  Queen's  man  of  special  learning, 
a  noted  Anglo-Saxon  scholar,  an  eminent  philolo- 
gist. Mr.  William  Hall,  the  Oxford  graduate,  is 
also  sponsor  for  an  early  tradition  of  the  utmost 
traditionary  importance, — "they  have  laid  him 
full  seventeen  foot  deep,  deep  enough  to  secure 
him." 

William  Hall  writes: 

"Dear  Neddy:  I  very  greedily  embrace  this 
occasion  of  acquainting  you  with  something 
which  I  found  at  Stratford-upon-Avon.  That 
place  I  came  unto  on  Thursday  night,  and  the 
next  day  went  to  visit  the  ashes  of  the"  great 
Shakespeare  which  lie  interned  in  that 
church.  The  verses  which  in  his  lifetime  he 
ordered  to  be  cut  upon  his  tombstone  for  his 

11 


monument  have  others  there  which  follow: 

*Reader  for  Jesus  sake  forbear 
To  dig  the  dust  enclosed  here ; 
Blessed  be  he  that  spares  these  stone's, 
And  cursed  be  he  that  moves  my  bones.' 

The  little  learning  thes-e  verses  contain 
would  be  a  very  strong  argument  of  the  want 
of  it  in  the  author  did  they  not  carry  some- 
thing in  them  which  stands  in  need  of  a  com- 
ment. There  is  in  this  church  a  place  which 
they  call  the  *bone-house,'  a  repository  for 
bones  they  dig  up  which  are  so  many  that 
they  would  load  a  great  number  of  waggons. 
The  poet  being  willing  to  preserve  his 
bones  unmoved  lays  a  curse  upon  him  that 
moves  them,  and  having  to  do  with  clerks 
and  sextons,  for  the  most  part  a  very  ig- 
norant sort  of  people,  he  descended  to  their 
meanest  capacity  and  disrobes  himself  of  that 
art  which  none  of  his  co-temporaries  wore 
in  greater  perfection.  Nor  has  the  design 
mist  of  its  effect  for  lest  they  should  not 
only  draw  this  curse  upon  themselves  but 
also  entail  it  upon  their  posterity, — they 
have  laid  him  full  seventeen  foot  deep,  deep 
enough  to  secure  him." 

However,  the  Oxford  graduate's  letter  to  his 
friend  brings  to  light  his  misapprehension  of  the 
meaning  or  true  interpretation  of  the  epitaph  in- 
asmuch as  the  spook  lines  were  not  addressed  to 
clerks  and  sextons,  for  they  were  not  the  custo- 
dians of  the  graves  in  the  chancel  of  Trinity 
Church.  But  the  scholarly  vicar  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon  is  the  custodian  of  Shakspere's  grave  and  the 

12 


monumental  bust  commemorative  of  him  and  all 
other  graves  and  monuments  in  the  chancel  and 
churchyard.  His  consent  to  the  disinterment 
would  be  necessary  before  anything  could  be  done 
by  any  exhumationist, — except  by  mob  force, — 
for  in  England  the  vicar  holds  undisputed  sway 
over  his  church  and  churchyard.  And  then,  too, 
William  Hall  ought  to  have  known  that  the  custom 
of  throwing  bones  into  a  repository  called  a  bone- 
house  was  discontinued  at  the  Reformation.  There 
had  been  no  enlargement  of  the  channel  vaults 
since  Shakspere's  birth.  William  Hall's  letter  to 
his  college  confidant  also  disclosed  the  fact  as  to 
the  statements  of  all  visitors  at  Stratford  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  that  he  had 
failed  to  examine  the  archives  of  the  Stratford 
Corporation,  the  official  papers.  There  is  nothing 
to  show  in  his  account,  that  there  had  be«n  in- 
surrection or  rioting  at  the  time  of  Shakspere's 
death  in  1616. 

How  much  there  is  in  the  life  of  Will  Shakspere 
that  stands  in  need  of  comment,  especially  from  a 
literary  point  of  view,  for  all  we  have  are  six  sig- 
natures in  no  way  connected  with  any  literary 
subject-matter — "only  this,  and  nothing  more !" 

So  then  to  disabuse  the  mind  of  the  reader  of 
the  doggerel  lines  of  the  impression  that  the  au- 
thor was  an  ignoramus,  Mr.  William  Hall  is  con- 
strained to  shirk  out  of  the  difficulty  by  assuming 
that  Shakspere  wrote  like  a  numskull  "down  to 
the  meanest  capacity"  of  the  ignorant  and  super- 
is 


stitious  townsfolk  who  were  persuaded  that  the 
epitaph  was  the  voice  of  the  dead. 

Shakspere  knew  that  the  would-be  exhumation- 
ist  of  that  day  were  the  townsfolk,  his  neighbors, 
and  could  have  had  no  fear  that  his  tomb  would 
be  violated  by  the  janitor  of  a  church.  But  he  was 
in  a  state  of  apprehension  fearful  of  the  townsfolk 
with  whom  he  and  his  confederates  were  at  the 
time  engaged  in  a  pitched  battle,  assailing  the 
aldermen  with  blows.  The  women  of  Stratford, 
hearing  the  battle  cry,  rushed  to  the  battle  front, 
— the  neighboring  common-fields  at  Welcombe, — 
and  battled  there  with  shovel  and  hoe  for  the  com- 
mon weal. 

However,  the  solid  fact  is  that  Mr.  William  Hall 
in  1694,  traditioned  the  generally  received  opin- 
ions of  the  townspeople  at  the  time  of  his  visit 
that  Shakspere  ordered  the  lines  chiseled  on  his 
tombstone,  and  also  states  the  oral  tradition  about 
the  depth  of  his  grave. 

The  sponsorship  of  the  two  young  men,  Dow- 
dall  and  Hall,  as  a  matter  of  fact  make  them- 
selves responsible  for  the  early  tradition  that  the 
spook  lines  were  his  own  composition.  Naught  has 
ever  subsequently  occurred  to  weaken  this.  In 
these  statements  we  have  a  basis  for  the  proof 
they  supply,  the  best  authentication  that  the  male- 
dictory lines  were  authorized  by  William  Shaks- 
pere and  by  him  ordered  to  be  cut  upon  his  tomb- 
stone, the  one  solid  ground,  something  better  than 
the  quagmire  upon  which  rests  most  of  the  so- 
called    Shakspere    tradition.      At    any  rate,  Mr. 

14 


William  Hall,  in  the  matter  of  the  depth  of  Shak- 
spere's  grave,  has  indeed  secured  the  positive  in- 
formation available  on  the  subject  of  Shakspere's 
interment  seventy-eight  years,  after  his  death. 
Furthermore,  William  Hall  may  have  met  some 
person  at  the  time  of  his  visit  to  Stratford  in 
1694  who  assisted  at  the  burial  of  William  Shaks- 
pere.  This  fact  is  made  probable  by  the  great  age 
of  my  genial  neighbor.  Senator  Cornelius  Cole,  of 
California,  now  in  his  ninety-ninth  year,  and  sole 
survivor  of  the  Congress  that  sat  during  Lincoln's 
administration.  Had  Senator  Cole  been  born  in 
the  seventeenth  century  instead  of  the  nineteenth, 
the  long  period  of  his  life  would  take  in  the  year 
1579  as  his  birth  year,  and  the  year  1694,  the  year 
of  the  Oxford  graduate,  William  HalPs,  visit  to 
Stratford  seventy-eight  years  after  Shakspere's 
interment.  Senator  Cole's  memory  might  touch 
the  two  extremities, — ^he  would  in  1616,  the  year 
in  which  Shakspere  closed  his  eyes  in  death,  and 
was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  Trinity  Church.  And 
having  attained  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  at  the 
time  of  Shakspere's  interment,  Cornelius  Cole 
could  have  assisted  at  the  burial  of  Shakspere 
seveiity-eight  years  before. 

However,  William  HalFs  statement  is  acceptable 
to  Sir  Sidney  Lee  who  writes:  "As  it  was  the 
grave  was  made  seventeen  foot  deep,  and  was 
never  opened  even  to  receive  his  wife  although  she 
expressed  the  desire  to  be  buried  with  her  hus- 
band." 

Mr.  William  Winter  felt  that  the  lines  inscribed 

15 


on  Shakespere's  gravestone  "were  unquestionably 
the  utterance  of  Shakspere  himself."  He  tells  us 
that  the  tradition  is  as  old  as  1693,  and  that 
"nothing  has  ever  since  occurred  to  shake  it." 
And,  continues  this  stalwart  Strathf ordian :  "The 
known  fact  of  her  husband  having  penned  the  lines 
was  the  sole  preventive  cause  of  her  interment  in 
his  grave."  In  a  word,  the  scare  of  the  to-be- 
expected  moving  of  Shakspere's  bones  while  the 
riot  raged  was  the  cause  of  the  barring  out  of  his 
wife's  bones. 

So  we  see  that  it  is  not  the  depth  of  his  grave 
alone  that  secures  him,  although  as  a  deterrent  it 
is  the  very  counterpart  of  the  scare-crowish  epi- 
taph which  convinced  the  ignorant  and  easily  de- 
ceived people  of  that  day  that  this  frightful  male- 
diction was  and  is  the  effect  of  a  spook-scare  now 
more  than  three  hundred  years  old,  invoking  a  de- 
parted spirit  to  deter  and  terrify  the  living  from 
an  investigation  to  discover  and  preserve  from  de- 
cay whatever  is  in  that  grave.  Still,  it  is  not  a 
question  of  recovery  of  Shakspere's  remains  but 
of  their  discovery. 

And  here  let  me  give  my  explanation  of  the  rea- 
son why  interments  and  inscriptions  did  not  follow 
each  other  in  chronological  order,  not  generally 
understood  by  Shakspere's  biographers.  The  fact 
seems  to  be  for  the  sole  purpose  of  keeping  secret 
the  exact  place  of  his  grave.  We  are  by  no  means 
sure  that  there  are  any  bones  at  all  under  the  slab. 
His  name  does  not  appear  upon  the  gravestone 
supposed  to  be  his.    So  far  as  anj^one  knows  there 


is  not  now  and  never  has  been  an  item  of  proof 
that  he  was  buried  there.  Shakspere  died  and  v/as 
buried  in  1616.  His  wife  died  and  was  buried 
in  1623,  yet  her  gravestone  takes  antecedence  in 
the  row  of  gravestones  of  the  Shakspere  family 
immediately  beneath  the  Shakspere  bust.  On  each 
of  these  stones — William  Shakspere  excepted — 
the  usual  inscription  appears,  "Here  lyeth  the 
body,''  etc.  We  conjecture  that  Shakspere  was  bur- 
ied in  reality  next  the  wall,  although  seemingly 
below  the  curse-inscribed  slab.  Our  supposition  is 
in  conformity  and  fitness  with  the  reasonable 
hypothesis  assumed  that  Shakspere's  burial,  in  the 
chancel  of  Trinity,  was  secret  and  at  dead  of  night, 
and  may  be  put  forth  tentatively  as  a  basis  for 
investigation,  helpful  in  reaching  the  true  infor- 
mation, the  exact  place  of  his  sepulchre. 

We  are  of  the  opinion  that  if  William  Shaks- 
pere's  body  is  ever  discovered  in  the  course  of  the 
excavations,  it  will  be  found  next  the  wall  below 
the  remains  of  his  wife.  Tradition  says  that  "she 
earnestly  desired  to  be  buried  in  her  husband's 
grave."  Dr.  John  Hall,  who  knew  the  exact  place 
of  his  father-in-law's  grave,  and  could  not  have 
been  scared,  even  if  not  at  the  very  time  con- 
cerned therin,  by  a  blustering  ghost,  may  have 
granted  his  mother-in-law's  request  in  not  actually 
making  a  breach  into  the  grave  pointed  out  as 
Shakspere's.  The  people  of  that  day  were  led  to 
believe  that  his  grave,  "so  awfully  guarded  by  a 
malediction,"  had  not  been  opened  up  at  the  bur- 
ial of  his  wife. 

17 


In  the  opinion  of  a  few  individuals,  the  church 
people  did  not  feel  that  "the  ashes  of  an  actor 
were  fit  to  lie  in  that  sacred  chancel."  In  sup- 
port of  this  statement  there  is  not  a  shred  of  evi- 
dence,— m'ere  guess  work,  shaded  with  the  color- 
ing of  their  own  thoughts,  "for  the  chancel  of 
Trinity  was  then  the  legal  and  customary  burial 
place  of  the  owners  of  the  tithes" — its  lay  rec- 
tors. This  gave  Shakspere,  the  tithes  owner,  the 
right  of  interment  in  the  chancel  of  Trinity. 
Shakspere  passed  away  in  opulence,  but  without 
any  contemporary  observations.  And,  further- 
more, Shakspere  was  almost  always  in  affiliation 
with  church  people.  He  came  into  intimate  relation 
with  a  wigmaker,  one  Mount  joy,  of  the  Huguenot 
faith, — the  then  new  evangel, — from  1598-1604. 
Shakspere  was  then  living  in  the  Mount  joy  shop 
house  in  "Silver  street,  London — Ben  Jonson 
styles  it  as  "Silver  Street, — the  region  of  money, 
a  good  seat  for  an  usurer."  (See  Dr.  C.  W.  Wal- 
lace, his  researches.) 

Somehow  the  credit  of  an  insatiable  money-hun- 
ger has  always  been  his,  while  not  himself  a  man 
of  Puritan  leanings,  his  son-in-law.  Dr.  John  Hall, 
was  a  Puritan.  His  strongly  attached  friends  were 
among  the  Puritan  clergy.  One  of  their  number 
was  entertained  at  New  Place,  Shakspere*s  dwell- 
ing in  the  Spring  of  1614.  Dr.  John  HalFs  personal 
sympathetic  affections  for  the  Puritan  is  unmis- 
takable. He  was  Vicar's  warden,  and  he  presented 
to  the  church  a  new  and  highly-carved  pulpit. 

The  Shaksp'eres  of  Stratford-on-Avon  strike  one 

18 


as  being  predisposed  to  disorder,  for  several  mem- 
bers of  the  family  embroiled  the  townspeople  in 
Shakspere's  lifetime  as  the  bare  recital  of  thefm 
will  show.  Three  members  were  charged  with  be- 
ing disorderly.  Dr.  John  Hall,  as  a  member  of  the 
town  council,  was  fined  in  October,  1633,  for  per- 
sistent non-attendance,  and  he  was  finally  expelled 
for  non-observance  and  for  his  oft-repeated  dis- 
turbance at  the  meetings.  Shakspere's  second  and 
youngest  son-in-law,  Thomas  Quiney,  was  twice 
fined,  once  for  using  profane  language  and  for 
keeping  a  disorderly  house,  and  again  for  his  in- 
fraction of  the  marriage  law  in  his  wedding  with 
Shakspere's  youngest  daughter,  Judith,  without 
a  license.  On  Feb.  10,  1616,  they  were  fined  and  a 
decree  of  excommunication  was  issued  by  the  Ec- 
clesiastical Court  at  Worcester.  So  it  would  seem 
that  Thomas  Quiney  was  not  "deeply  read  in  the 
Oracle  of  God,"  nor  that  "his  worst  fault  is  that 
he  is  given  to  prayer.'* 

Early  in  the  17th  century  swearing  was  rigor- 
ously prohibited.  Still,  the  playmakers  seemingly 
had  great  difficulty  in  keeping  swear  words  out  of 
their  plays,  often  interpolated  by  the  players,  Ben 
Jonson  being  charged  with  blasphemy.  "The 
'Magnetic  Lady'  is  void  of  all  offense,  yet  for  the 
profane  language  of  this  play  the  author  then 
sick  in  bed  was  questioned  by  the  Master  of  the 
Revels  and  it  was  not  until  the  performers  were 
confronted  with  him  they  confessed  themselves.*' 

However,  Shakspere  was  also  a  disturber  of  the 
local  peace  as  an  assistant  and  supporter  of  the 

19 


notorious  land  cribbers,  William  and  Thomas 
Combe,  with  whom  he  was  actively  associated  in 
the  oppression  of  the  townf oik  in  the  battle  of  the 
Enclosure  of  Common  Fields  at  Welcombe,  a  sub- 
urb, in  1614-1618,  and  would  doubtless  have  been 
fined  had  not  death  intervened  in  1616,  for  Shaks- 
pere's  conduct  "defied  the  law  of  the  realm."  Not 
a  single  fact  relating  to  the  burial  of  Shakspere ; 
not  a  single  recorded  word  in  regard  to  the  last 
offices  of  his  remains,  or  transient  observations 
from  a  single  one  who  came  into  personal  associa- 
tion with  him ;  not  even  glanced  at  by  his  son-in- 
law.  Dr.  John  Hall,  in  any  of  his  medical  writings. 
How  inexplicable  if  the  Stratford  actor  was  the 
author ! 

But  our  business  is  to  see  what  the  man  Shaks- 
pere, of  Stratford,  saw,  and  to  see  the  meaning 
of  them  in  the  cause  of  the  event  which  the  curse- 
inscribed  gravestones  is  the  effect.  Although  the 
time  of  the  events  of  1614-1616  is  past,  its  dusty 
records  remain  as  witnesses  in  the  Stratford 
archives  and  are  deducible  from  the  events  in  its 
early  times  for  our  comprehension  of  them.  The 
execrative  epitaph,  cut  on  Shakspere's  tomb,  is  a 
criminating  memorial  of  his  attempt  to  gain  pos- 
session of  the  Stratford  Common  fields. 

However,  would  Shakspere,  if  sentient  now,  de- 
sire the  good  people  of  Stratford  (whether  he  was 
or  was  not  the  poet)  to  keep  inviolate  his  last  ex- 
action, the  maledictory  wish  expressed  and  epi- 
graphed  while  in  the  extremity  of  fear?  But  rather 
that  the  maintenance  or  preservation  would  not 

20 


meet  his  wishes,  instead  would  decree  that  his 
grave  beneath  a  consecrated  roof,  dedicated  to 
Christian  worship,  shall  be  no  longer  guarded  by 
malediction.  As  in  fact  there  is  epitaphed  beneath 
the  consecrated  roof  of  Holy  Trinity  Church  the 
only  mortuary  malediction  contained  in  an  edifice 
dedicated  to  Christian  worship,  a  memorial  stone 
of  the  dead  on  which  is  chiseled  the  avowal  of  a 
fearful  principle  a  rule  of  action  proclaimed  so  op- 
posite in  sentiment  and  feeling  to  a  better  human- 
ity— "the  gospel  of  peace  on  earth  and  good  will 
toward  men."  That  principle  which  is  repellant 
also  to  ancient  religious  feeling  save  at  altars  of 
human  sacrifice  that  were  created  to  propitiate 
the  Deity  in  the  ages  when  he  was  universally  un- 
derstood to  be  a  God  of  vengeance,  a  Being  acces- 
sible only  to  cringing  supplication  and  worshiped 
by  sacrifice. 

Mrs.  C.  C.  Stopes,  who  is  manifestly  ashamed  of 
"the  authorship  of  the  doggerel  lines  cut  on  his 
tomb,"  shifts  the  responsibility  from  Shakspere 
to  the  stonecutter,  tells  us  that  Shakspere's  epi- 
taph was  probably  a  part  of  the  stock  in  trade  of 
the  stonecutters,  but  the  cultured  lady  refrains 
from  quoting  another  specimen  of  the  "stonecut- 
ter's doggerel  stock-in-trade,*'  although  convinced 
that  Shakspere  did  not  actually  write  them,  in 
which  case  somebody  else  must  have  written  them 
with  the  approval  or  sanction  of  Shakspere  or  his 
family.  At  all  events  the  burden  of  proving  that 
Shakspere  did  not  write  the  lines  cut  on  his  sup- 
posed tombstone  rests  upon  those  who  say  he  did 

21 


not  write  them.  The  idolatrous  Stratfordian  is  in 
difficulties. 

For  Shakspere's  friends  placed  the  slab  they  had 
prepared  at  the  time  of  the  burial  in  1616  where  it 
now  rests.  Dowdall  tells  us  that  the  slab  lay  on 
his  grave  in  1693.  Hall  saw  it  there  in  1694,  and  it 
is  seen  today  on  his  supposed  grave  where  it  was 
placed  more  than  three  hundred  years  ago.  But 
the  most  pertinent  of  all  questions  for  an  answer 
to  the  purpose  is,  Who  should  wish  or  would  dare, 
or  be  permitted  to  chisel,  a  malediction  upon 
Shakspere's  gravestone  without  his  authority  and 
the  countenance  of  Shakspere's  family  ? 

Now  we  do  not  scruple  to  affirm  responsi- 
bility for  the  curse-inscribed  slab  resting  on  the 
grave  pointed  out  as  Shakspere's  in  the  chancel  of 
Holy  Trinity,  for  the  events  of  1614-1616  point 
unerringly  at  Wiliam  Shakspere  who  rioted  in 
1614-1616  against  the  peace  of  the  townspeople 
and  the  government  of  the  realm.  Dr.  John  Hall 
and  the  Vicar  of  Stratford-on-Avon  aiding  and 
abetting  the  design  of  the  author  of  the  lines  to 
prevent  disinterment  by  the  people. 

Dr.  John  Hall,  who  survived  his  father-in-law, 
William  Shakspere,  nineteen  years,  as  a  knowing 
man,  would  naturally  have  felt  that  considerable 
supervisory  care  of  family  interest  would  devolve 
upon  himself.  The  members  of  the  Shakspere 
family,  for  the  most  part,  were  destitute  of  edu- 
cation. And  inasmuch  as  Shakspere  had  been  one 
of  the  rioters,  he  felt  that  his  bones  should  have 
all  the  protection  that  a  malediction  could  give.  Of 

22 


course  this  was  to  be  expected   so   long   as   riot 
raged. 

But  why  was  the  curse-inscribed  stone  not  re- 
moved from  Shakspere's  grave  in  1619  after  all 
danger  of  disinterment  by  the  townspeople  had 
passed  ?  For  authority  had,  on  or  before  this  time, 
suppressed  the  insurrection,  compelling  the  sur- 
viving rioters  of  1614-1618,  (Shakspere  dying  in 
1616)  to  fall  on  their  knees,  beg  for  mercy,  pay 
the  fine  imposed,  and  restore  the  common-lands  to 
the  condition  in  which  they  were  in  1614.  We  an- 
swer then  that  the  inference  would  naturally  be 
that  whatever  opinion  Dr.  John  Hall  may  have 
held  respecting  the  authorship  of  the  lines,  he 
knew  they  express  Shakspere's  wishes,  for  had  he 
held  the  contrary  opinion,  the  curse-inscribed 
slab  would  have  been  pitched  forthwith  into  the 
Avon  that  flows  close  to  the  walls  of  Trinity. 

Exhumations  were  common,  we  read,  when  in 
the  year  1905  was  found  the  body  of  the  valorous 
Admiral  John  Paul  Jones,  the  American  Ambassa- 
dor to  France,  General  Horace  Porter,  having  been 
six  years  seeking  to  locate  the  remains  of  one  of 
the  greatest  sea  fighters  of  history.  The  discov- 
ered remains  were  positively  identified  and  were 
exhumed  after  his  body  had  been  buried  for  more 
than  100  years  in  the  old-abandoned  cemetery  of 
Saint  Luis,  in  the  City  of  Paris. 

Dr.  Inglesby,  a  votarist  of  Shakspere,  himself 
a  life  trustee  of  the  tomb  which  he  thought  was 
that  of  the  poet,  many  years  ago  very  respect- 
fully demanded  that  the  grave  be  opened,  and  all 

28 


the  means  of  science  be  employed  for  the  better 
preservation  of  the  mortal  remains. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  also  an  earnest  ad- 
vocate of  the  view  taken  by  Dr.  Inglesby  that  it 
was  a  paramount  duty  that  Shakspere's  grave  be 
opened  to  repair  to  make  amends  for  three  hun- 
dred years  of  neglect.  But  with  equal  seriousness 
Halliwell-Phillips,  protesting  against  the  proposed 
disinterment,  says : 

"If  a  skull  were  found  in  the  grave,  and  it§ 
formation  corresponded  with  the  monumental 
bust,  there  would  be  merely  a  confirmation 
of  our  present  knowledge.  If,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  formation  did  not  so  correspond, 
the  inference  would  naturally  be  that  it  was 
not  Shakespeare's,  the  evidence  of  the  bust 
altogether  outweighing  that  of  a  particular 
skull  found  in  the  grave." 

But  it  all  depends  where  a  particular  skull  is 
found,  whether  on  the  six-foot  or  seventeen-foot 
level.  Mr.  Phillips  assumes  that  Shakspere's  bones 
rest  on  a  common  level,  as  do  the  remains  of  all 
his  fellow  townspeople  buried  in  the  chancel.  But 
if  a  skull  were  found  "full  seventeen  feet  deep," 
no  matter  what  the  state  of  affairs  attendant  upon 
Shakspere's  interment,  the  great  depth  at  which 
a  particular  skull  is  found  will  serve  as  proof  for 
identification,  the  evidence  of  the  skull  wholly 
outweighing  that  of  the  monumental  bust  and  ac- 
credited portrait. 

What  may  be  called  "aspiring  families  of 
wealth"  have  almost  exclusive  possession  of  the 

24 


chancel  space  in  Holy  Trinity.  John  Combe,  who 
was  laid  to  rest  in  Trinity  Church  with  much  for- 
mality the  10th  day  of  July,  1614,  from  whom 
Shakspere  inherited  five  pounds,  like  his  old  friend, 
was  a  "hard  creditor." 

The  Combes, — Uncle  John  and  his  nephew,  Will- 
iam, and  Thomas, — were  very  wealthy  and,  like 
Wililam  Shakspere,  notorious  for  their  harsh,  un- 
feeling method  of  treating  indigent  debtors  in 
"spacious  times,"  when  imprisonment  for  debt  was 
in  practice.  But  for  all  that  Uncle  John  Combe, 
during  more  than  300  years,  and  being  still  with- 
out the  malediction's  protection,  rests  in  his  fam- 
ily monument  in  Holy  Trinity.  We  know  why  the 
usurer's  bones  were  in  no  danger  of  violent  re- 
moval, seeing  that  he  was  not  like  Shakspere  en- 
gaged in  land  cribbing  against  the  public  weal 
when  the  summons  came  to  lay  him  in  the  grave. 
John  Combe's  will,  preserved  in  Somerset  House, 
directed  that  he  be  interred  in  Stratford  Church 
"near  the  place  where  my  mother  was  buried." 
The  old  man's  childhood  memories  hold  firmly. 

The  saddest  audible  expression  of  sorrow, 
wrung  from  the  human  heart,  comes  from  the  old 
and  lonely.  They  hear  their  mother  calling,  call- 
ing, gently  calling,  "come,  my  child."  Thomas 
Carlyle,  dying,  cried,  "I  want  me  mither!"  Lin- 
coln said :  "All  I  am  and  all  I  hope  to  be  I  owe  to 
my  mother."  Henry  Clay,  dying,  an  old  man, 
cried  three  times  "mother!" 

"Backward,  turn  backv/ard,  0  Time  in  your  flight, 
Make  me  a  child  again,  just  for  tonight." 

25 


"One  of  the  most  pathetic  facts  of  life  is  that 
sometimes  one  does  not  get  acquainted  with 
mother  until  she  is  dead." 

Howells  said:  'A  man  never  sees  all  that  his 
mother  has  been  to  him  until  it's  too  late  to  let 
her  know  that  he  sees  it." 

A  Jewish  saying:  "God  could  not  be  every- 
where, and  therefore  He  made  mothers." 

However,  the  terms  of  the  will  of  John  Combe 
show  a  charitable  impulse  towards  his  numerous 
kinfolk  and  Stratford  neighbors,  and  of  course  he 
should  get  the  advantage  of  that  kind  considera- 
tion which  the  good  people  of  Stratford  have  for 
the  dead.  However,  the  casualties  of  the  old  bach- 
elor's life  were  few.  As  a  converse  instance,  with- 
in two  months  after  their  uncle,  John  Combe's 
death,  William  and  Thomas  Combe,  associated 
with  William  Shakspere  and  Arthur  Mainwaring, 
set  on  foot  an  insurrection — 1614-1618. 

Still,  we  are  not  accusing  them  in  their  graves. 
The  dead  are  no  longer  hated.  William  Combe, 
for  nearly  half  a  century  after  his  defeat,  had 
lived  in  peaceful  relations  with  the  townspeople. 
He  died  at  Stratford  on  January  30,  1666-7,  at  the 
age  of  eighty  and  was  buried  in  Trinity  Church 
where  a  monument  commemorates  him  with  his 
wife,  a  son,  and  nine  daughters.  Unlike  that  of 
his  former  associate,  William  Shakspere,  his  tomb 
bore  no  shuddering  fear.  His  dreamless  dust  rests 
and  has  rested  with  those  he  loved  and  with  those 
who  loved  him. 

26 


Compare  and  contrast  also  Thomas  Combe  with 
William  Shakspere  in  his  impartiality  and  freedom 
from  bias  in  the  treatment  of  wife  and  children. 
Thomas  Combe  appointed  by  his  will  the  sum  of 
four  hundred  pounds  as  the  marriage  portion  of 
each  of  his  two  daughters,  without  favor  or  pref- 
erence, both  are  treated  alike.  Shakspere  was  not 
so  equitable  in  his  treatment  of  his  two  daughters. 
His  bequest  to  his  youngest  daughter,  Judith,  was 
contemptible  in  comparison  with  the  munificent 
legacy  bestowed  on  her  sister.  Of  his  three  chil- 
dren but  one,  his  favorite  daughter,  Susanna,  was 
buried  in  Trinity  Church. 

Shakspere  distributed  his  vast  property  with 
much  partiality,  the  elder  daughter  receiving,  un- 
der the  terms  of  the  will,  as  a  matter  of  fact  al- 
most all  of  Shakspere's  estate, — all  the  lands,  mes- 
suages, tenements,  barns,  and  gardens  at  and  near 
Stratford,  together  with  Shakspere's  interest  in 
the  tithes  and  the  house  in  Blackfriars,  London. 
The  conveyance  of  the  Blackfriars  estate  to  Will- 
iam Shakspere  in  1613  shows  that  he  had  barred 
his  wife's  dower.  Shakspere  had  taken  steps  to 
prevent  her  individual  ownership  of  her  home, 
New  Place,  also  from  the  benefit  or  use  of  the 
household  furniture  and  personal  belongings. 

Sir  Sidney  Lee  writes :  "Such  procedure  is  pret- 
ty conclusive  proof  that  he  (Shakspere)  had  the 
intention  of  excluding  her  from  the  enjoyment  of 
his  possessions  after  his  death."  By  the  way,  Sir 
Sidney  Lee  was  of  the  orthodox,  or  Stratfordian, 
faith." 

27 


The  afterthought  legacy  of  his  "second  best 
bed"  to  his  wife  and  the  barring  of  her  dower  and 
discriminating  apportionment  of  his  estate  under 
the  terms  of  the  will,  should  be  accepted  as  hav- 
ing been  proved  that  Shakspere  was  not  an  affec- 
tionate husband. 

By  way  of  contrast  read  Sir  Thomas  Lucy's 
tribute  to  his  wife,  a  model  of  all  womanly  vir- 
tues, which  he  epigraphed  on  stone  and  placed 
over  her  tomb.  It  tells  the  story  of  their  love,  and 
reveals  the  gentle  nature  of  her  husband  (Sir 
Thomas  Lucy)  a  nature  grateful  and  lovable. 

But  suddenly  the  parting  summons  comes  to 
Shakspere  in  early  Spring  at  Stratford  in  1616. 
And  probably  at  "noon  of  night"  they  bore  him  to 
that  quiet  resting  place.  Here  he  lies,  "dust  to 
dust,"  without,  apparently,  public  notice;  certain- 
ly there  was  no  ceremonious  funeral.  A  few  de- 
jected friends,  the  mourners  for  the  dead,  assem- 
ble in  the  dismal  shadows  of  the  chancel  of  Trin- 
ity Church  to  lay  him  in  the  grave.  He  was  not 
then  shrined  in  the  loving  memory  of  the  towns- 
people. No  poet  had  wailed  a  dirge  for  Shakspere 
of  Stratford-on-Avon.  Obituary  silence!  "Merely 
this  and  nothing  more." 

As  the  imprecating  lines  inscribed  on  his  chan- 
cel grave  attest,  Washington  Irving  writes,  "lines 
which  have  in  them  something  extremely  awful." 

But  the  grave  had  already  been  opened  up  in  the 
chancel  of  Trinity  Church,  not  without  consider- 
able difficulty  if  his  grave  was  dug  seventeen  feet 
deep.    For,  inasmuch  as  the  AVon  runs  close  to 

28 


the  walls  of  Trinity  (  its  surface  not  more  than 
three  or  four  feet  below  the  chancel  floor,  the  in- 
flow through  the  seepy  ground  considerable  and, 
of  course,  buckets  were  used  to  bail  out  the  water 
if  pumps  were  not  in  use  at  Stratford.  To  all  ap- 
pearance they  sunk  his  grave  as  low  as  they  could 
with  safety.  Without  retaining  walls  there  was 
danger  of  caving,  for  Shakspere  was  buried  in  the 
ground,  not  in  a  vault.  Nevertheless,  the  depth 
of  his  grave,  which  may  easily  be  determined  by 
sinking  a  shaft  on  the  outside  of  the  wall  of  Trin- 
ity to  the  seventeen-foot  level  and  tunneling  made 
in  order  to  locate  his  grave ;  or,  if  necessary,  cross- 
cut. The  condition  of  the  ground  at  the  tunnel 
would  disclose  the  approach  to  his  grave,  "moving 
my  bones"  not  being  an  essential  requisite  in  de- 
termining the  measure  of  Shakspere's  grave. 

At  any  rate,  Wililam  Hall,  a  Queen's  man,  Ox- 
ford, seems  to  state  the  tradition  with  exactness 
and  true-heartedness : 

The  probable  cause  of  Shakspere's  untimely 
death  was  the  unsanitary  situation  at  Stratford — 
its  fetid  pools  of  stagnant  water,  full  of  refuse, 
wallowing  swine  and  carrion  crows : 

"Thus  like  the  sad  presaging  raven  that  tolls 
The  sick  man's  passport  in  her  hollow  beak 
And,  in  the  shadow  of  the  silent  night, 
Doth  shake  contagion  from  h'el*  sable  wings." 

*The  most  dirty,  unseemly,  ill-paved,  wretched- 
looking  town  in  all  Britain,"  is  David  Garrick's  un- 
savory description  of  Stratford  at  the  time  of  the 
jubilee  in  1769." 

29 


The  sanitary  condition  of  Stratford  in  Shak- 
spere's  day,  and  for  many  generations,  was  sim- 
ply terrible.    Here  is  the  proof: 

The  vicarage  of  Stratford-on-Avon  was  held 
from  1619  to  1638,  or,  according  to  Wheler's  Cata- 
logue, till  1640,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Wilson,  B.D. 
He  was  suspended  for  three  months  from  5th 
June,  1635,  by  Archbishop  Laud,  Vicar-General, 
for  being  "notorious."  He  incurs  disgrace  for  al- 
lowing his  children  to  play  at  ball  and  other  games 
in  the  house  of  worship,  himself  hiking  about  the 
church  in  time  of  divine  service ;  for  suffering  his 
hogs  to  snuggle  in  the  chancel  of  Holy  Trinity  and 
his  fowls  to  roost  there. 

The  cock's  clarion  note  may  have  been  heard 
from  a  perch  upon  the  bust  of  Shakspere  just 
above  the  chancel  floor — a  sordid  place  of  wor- 
ship, indeed !  Who  would  have  thought  it  when  in 
the  year  of  Dr.  John  HalFs  death  in  1635  the 
quack  of  the  duck,  the  raucous  throat-tones  of  the 
goose,  and  the  squawk  of  the  barnyard  fowls  were 
heard  in  the  chancel  of  Holy  Trinity  Church ! 

However,  the  Columbus  who  discovered  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon was  the  great  American  showman, 
Phineas  Taylor  Barnum,  by  offering  to  buy  the 
so-called  Shakspere  cottage  (his  birth-place), 
wreck  it,  and  send  it  to  America.  It  did  not  sig- 
nify much  to  Barnum  that,  as  a  matter  of  truth 
the  old  cottage  did  not  rest  historically  on  the 
solid  ground  of  authenticated  fact,  but  upon  the 
quagmire  of  guesswork.  The  opinion  that  Shaks- 
pere was  not  born  in  the  house  called  the  birth- 

30 


place,  has  been  held  by  persons  whose  opinions 
deserve  the  utmost  consideration.  The  accepted 
stuff  of  Shakspere's  birthplace,  and  that  of  his 
wife,  in  relation  to  the  Hathaway  Cottage,  are 
biographic  legends.  It  was  this  shrewd  clever 
American  who  yankeeized  Stratford  into  a  great 
showplace.  It  was  he  who  woke  up  the  relic-mon- 
gers of  Stratford  to  the  fact  that  it  were  better  to 
keep  the  old  cottage  and  bogus  Shakspere  relics 
to  fool  and  fleece  the  gaping  thousands  who  visit 
Stratford  every  year.  It  was  an  oft-repeated  say- 
ing of  Barnum's  that  "the  people  liked  to  be 
fooled."  Or,  as  Makenzie  puts  it :  "Mankind  in  the 
gross  is  a  gaping  monster  that  loves  to  be  de- 
ceived and  has  seldom  been  disappointed."  There  is 
a  native  tendency  of  men  to  lend  a  qualifying  ob- 
servation to  deception;  they  receive  with  favor  a 
false  opinion  about  a  matter  of  fact. 

Sir  George  Greenwood  is  right  in  saying  that 
"the  delusions  are  based  upon  prejudice  and  pre- 
conceived ideas,  and  die  very  hard." 

Delusions  based  upon  prejudice  are  not  traceable 
in  the  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln  who  said: 

"If  ever  I  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate 
and  expand  to  those  dimensions  not  wholly 
unworthy  of  its  Almighty  Architect,  it  i'S 
when  I  contemplate  the  cause  of  my  country, 
deserted  by  all  the  world  besides,  and  I  stand- 
ing up  boldly  and  alone  hurling  defiance  at 
her  victorious  oppressors.  Here,  before  con- 
templating consequences  before  high  Heaven, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal 
fidelity  to  the  just  cause  as  I  deem  it,  of  the 

31 


land  of  my  life,  my  liberty  and  my  love.  I 
do  the  very  best  I  know  how,  the  very  best 
I  can,  and  I  mean  to  keep  doing  so  till  the  end. 
If  the  end  brings  me  out  all  right,  what  is 
said  against  me  won't  amount  to  anything. 
If  the  end  brings  me  out  wrong,  ten  angels 
swearing  I  was  right  would  make  no  differ- 
ence. Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes 
might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  do 
our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 

Mrs.  Ellen  Huntington  Gates  has  crystallized 
into  verse  the  spirit  of  Lincoln. 


"YOUR  MISSION" 

"If  you  cannot  on  the  ocean 

Sail  among  the  swiftest  fleet. 
Rocking  on  the  highest  billow. 

Laughing  at  the  storms  you  meet, 
You  can  stand  among  the  sailors. 

Anchored  yet  within  the  bay. 
You  can  lend  a  hand  to  help  them. 

As  they  launch  their  boats  away. 

"If  you  are  too  weak  to  journey 

Up  the  mountain,  steep  and  high. 
You  can  stand  within  the  valley 

Where  the  multitudes  go  by. 
You  can  chant  in  happy  measure 

As  they  slowly  pass  along ; 
Though  they  may  forget  the  singer. 

They  will  not  forget  the  song. 

"If  you  cannot,  in  the  harvest. 
Gather  up  the  richest  sheaves, 
Many  a  grain  both  ripe  and  golden 
Oft  the  careless  reaper  leaves — 


Go  and  glean  among  the  briars 
Growing  rank  against  the  wall, 

For  it  may  be  that  their  shadow 
Hides  the  heaviest  wheat  of  all. 

"If  you  have  not  gold  and  silver 

Ever  ready  to  command ; 
If  you  cannot  toward  the  needy 

Reach  an  ever-open  hand; 
You  can  visit  the  afflicted, 

O'er  the  erring  you  can  weep, 
With  the  Saviour's  true  diisciples, 

You  a  patient  watch  may  keep. 

"If  you  cannot  in  the  conflict 

Prove  yourself  a  soldier  true, 
If  where  fire  and  smoke  are  thickest 

There's  no  work  for  you  to  do ; 
When  the  battle  field  is  silent. 

You  can  go  with  careful  tread. 
You  can  bear  away  the  wounded. 

You  can  cover  up  the  dead. 

"Do  not  then  stand  idly  waiting 

For  some  greater  work  to  do ; 
Fortune  is  a  lazy  goddess, 

She  will  never  come  to  you. 
Go  and  toil  in  any  vineyard. 

Do  not  fear  to  do  or  dare. 
If  you  want  a  field  of  labor, 

You  can  find  it  anywhere." 


S8 


WM.  H.  CHAPMAN 

t7tB  HUDSON  AVf. 
*••  ANeCLES.  CAJL  ,  U.  8.  A. 


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